big jim

Done a bit of work to the minis at the weekend, first up the red one, the headlights are shocking on it, at night on dipped beam Your lucky to see 10ft in front of you so I took the xenon headlights I had spare in the shed off the blue car and fitted them to the convertible, I can finally see where I’m going! just need to fit the washer jet covers to it I also had that car rolling roaded last week and it’s putting out 123bhp, which compared to its standard 89bhp is pretty impressive considering it’s only had an air filter, exhaust and super chip as for the blue one, well that’s been a nightmare again, put a new 2nd hand manifold on it last Saturday only to have it fail the following Sunday at the flexi pipe, luckily the seller refunded me as it was under warantee and I picked up a performance manifold the day after off eBay which I’m hoping to get fitted this week bargain of the day though is a new spoiler for it, again, off eBay for less than half the retail price, something I’m hoping to get fitted at the weekend too im also going to have a try at taking the induction kit off and replacing it with a home made airbox kit, the current k&n has a metal inlet pipe that gets quite warm in the engine bay and the filter is also open to the engine bay temperatures , I’m looking at doing what John cooper works do with the air box and refit its plastic pipe and airbox but with the K&N cone filter inside away from the heat of the engine, the standard airbox also has extra ducting inlets and pipes which draw cold air in so refitting those may reduce intake temperatures

Just a couple from last night, last minute job due to sickness, landor st to trafford park and back to Coventry running round in Trafford park and all ready to go crewe to Leamington tonight

brilliant video too! of course, my lovely horse that i referenced above is also by the divine comedy one of the Shunter’s in work (person not loco!) toured Europe with them last year with his band

saw them in Wrexham last year and Dominic got to be Henry Hoover!

And this humdinger from the Horne section

Most tunes on the ‘one song to the tune of another’ bit on ‘I’m sorry haven’t a clue’ give me a giggle the one that sticks out in particular is ‘Girlfriend in a coma’ by the smiths to the tune of ‘tiptoe through the tulips’ then there is ‘my lovely horse’ off father ted, with its obligatory video

that’s right, the points at sandbach we’re clipped and scotched towards the independent lines and towards styal at Wilmslow so only freight could get through

The problem over the last few days has been the points haven’t had detection so despite ESW they had to be clipped and scorched, all 40 sets over a 20 mile section!

If nothing else after the chaos of the middle of the week the signalling has given me a quiet weekend, supposed to be on a T3 possession in Trentham last night and today but it’s had to be cancelled as it was needed as a diversionary route all was not lost though, as I was all set for a bit of track work and ready to roll I thought I’d have my own little T3 in the mancave and carried on with a bit more of the layout! I’ll be putting some more pics in my layout thread later

There was an offer on last week where you got a voucher for 10% of your sale back to spend back in the site, I had a load of Robert harrop ornaments that I no longer wanted so I shoved those up starting at various prices around the £25 mark one Individual item (Ivor the engine) went for £300 and another 5 went to one buyer for £290 so I ended up with 2 vouchers for £30 and £29 respectively, along with about 10 other vouchers ranging between £1 and £10 from other sales, I’ve got a month to use them The smaller value vouchers are handy to take a few quid off low value items but I’m waiting to find something I really want to spend the £29 voucher on, the £30 one went toward a model rail USA tank (longmoor military railway livery) that was £105 buy it now, thus taking it down to £75

To be honest this is the first time I’ve seen it too, and it’s been a good 15 year since I’ve done TBW too, hence why the rule book was out last night!

Is it still there?

@Siggie in the east The train last night certainly had a ticket, RT3190, and it says in the rule book (Module S5, section 5) that one is required, signallers duties are defined in point 5.4 below (starts on previous page but this is most relevant) I didn’t work through the section so can’t comment on the boards being out

To give you an idea, On these screen shots off opentraintimes website each **** is a failure of some sort (and this isn’t the whole route!) and each one of those signals has to be passed at danger using an emergency special working form to be honest I’ve just looked at my rulebook As I’m typing this thinking ESW must have replaced temporary block working but that’s the next section of the rule book and I’m struggling to see what situational difference there is as to which one would be applied, the only thing I can think of is ESW is for axle counter lines and temp block working is for track circuits, anyone?

Hazel grove isn’t part of this issue, I don’t know if they have been having problems there too though, I doubt it as the Stone train I conducted came that way last night and will do so again later The signalling between crewe Sydney bridge and cheadle Hulme is made by a company called ansaldo and is the only line in the country with it equipped so when whatever happened the other day happened it affected the whole line, it appears to have lost detection so trains are having to be worked through by ticket working and every set of points has had to be clipped and scotched (40 sets) trains are getting special working tickets to allow them to pass 30 consecutive stop signals at danger in the area! the headache being one train can’t set off until the other reaches the other end of the emergency working, normally our trafford park train for example follows the tail light of another freightliner all the way along that section and there is then one 30 mins behind us into Trafford park, it’s currently taking trains 50 mins to get through one at a time! ive just worked 4M51 as far as crewe and am currently not required so have come home for a bit but I’m expecting a call later to go and meet it’s southbound working back at the station as again it’s likely to be late later and the driver will exceed his hours, I booked on later so can get it back to nuneaton, here’s hoping the phone doesn’t ring though! landor st waiting room head north

Tonight’s pics (hopefully no more to add as I’ve come home for a break and I may not be needed any more first job was to recover the liner from gresty green, as promised got a colas 56 to perform the drag back, only went gresty to basford hall but I wonder if that’s the first 56 on a liner since fastline days! Not the best pic because of the mast! rhen once that was sorted and the 56 put back on its train I jumped in a taxi to stockport to work a Cemex train via manchester Piccadilly and chat moss into basford hall, it normally goes through stockport the other way and heads towards Wilmslow but tonight due to the ongoing issues it came via hazel grove to head towards Manchester that was it for pics as I was so busy, i may still get a call to head to stockport again to conduct the liner back south via Macclesfield but currently it’s routed through the disrupted area on it’s booked route so I won’t be needed (let’s hope it stays that way!)

Southbound MOD last night, diverted via crewe station due to issues on the independent lines into basford hall, which is as far as I got due to a signalling problem between crewe and Manchester (which as I type this is still ongoing after nearly 24 hours!) the Trafford park intermodal was sat in crewe, the driver in that being on a long diagram and not signing any diversion routes so I suggested that we swap foot plates and he take my train to Leamington spa and I’d take his to Manchester when the line was clear, he also lives not far from Leamington so it worked out good for him so on the intermodal I jumped at 03:00 where I was still sat at 07:30! I eventually took it round to gresty green where it’s currently sat waiting for me to book on after rest to rescue it, the issue being it’s too long for the loop so the loco is now blocked in so we have had to hire a loco to drag the train back out of the loop to release the loco having just checked the log the line is under special working arrangements so trains are creeping through but having to fill out forms for each of the 14 signals that have failed so I’ve suggested we see if we can run via warrington and chat moss to Manchester, change ends in longsight goods loop and run into Trafford from there, will have to see what transpires, secretly I’m hoping that’s what happens as the loco we have hired to drag the train back is a colas 56

Some from tonight, should have been landor st to crewe but as I was early in I drove to Hatton and met the other driver there 66786 and into the loop in crewe, drew me up behind a NR test train which had our 73s on same train south tomorrow night

Forgot to put last nights pics up, landor st to Leicester with MK1 barrier vehicles and back to bescot 66713 plenty to see on leicester depot but they aren’t keen on you taking pics so only a close up arty shot of GBRF 47s and a 56 landor st to crewe tonight

you get a good view on street view too

cue hale and pace this time

cue eddies izzards ‘pavlov’s cat’ sketch

Picked up a Nice book at the car boot today in crewe what makes it a bit more special is the receipt inside from crewe works be interesting to see if MR Black is still alive, I’m sure there must be some sort of works archive I can access

Hank has a couple of favourite toys that he carry’s round then batters hell out of, what makes us laugh though is after he’s finished he will pick them up and carry them both to the food bowl and plonk them alongside for them to have a feed, of course with us having other cats the food get eaten, we can’t help thinking that He comes back and thinks the toys have had a good dinner!

its 90026 whoevers that was